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Venom Vol 4 8
(Story) (Title) | Editor-in-Chief = C.B. Cebulski | CoverArtist1 = Ryan Stegman | CoverArtist2 = JP Mayer | CoverArtist3 = Edgar Delgado | Production1_1 = Anthony Gambino | Production1_2 = Alan Fine | CCO = Joe Quesada | President1_1 = Dan Buckley | StoryTitle1 = | Writer1_1 = Donny Cates | Penciler1_1 = Iban Coello | Inker1_1 = Iban Coello | Colourist1_1 = Andres Mossa | Letterer1_1 = Clayton Cowles | Editor1_1 = Devin Lewis | Editor1_2 = Lauren Amaro | Editor1_3 = Nick Lowe | Synopsis1 = | Quotation = Much as I hate to admit it... Flash Thompson was a badass Venom. | Speaker = Eddie Brock | Appearing1 = Featured Characters: * Supporting Characters: * * Antagonists: * ** ** Numerous unnamed others Other Characters: * * * * * * * * * * ** ** ** * ** ** Unnamed other * * Races and Species: * * * * * * * * Locations: * ** Undisclosed location *** Lab 009 ** *** Eddie's apartment (New York, New York) *** **** ***** *** **** ***** ****** ******* Temple to Knull ** *** **** * * Items * Flash's Codex * * * * * * Vehicles: * Events: * * | Synopsis1 = Clad in his Venom jacket, Eddie Brock stands in Arlington National Cemetery looking down at Flash Thompson's grave. Eddie remarks that it feels wrong that Flash is the one dead and buried while he's still alive; admitting that for all his tough talk about being the original Venom he can tell the symbiote preferred Flash as a host, and that even with its voice gone he can feel it still trying to reach out to him. The Maker interrupts, asking Eddie if he's finished, and presses a button on the side of a tombstone - revealing the cemetery to be a hologram. As the Venom symbiote transforms back into a T-shirt and jeans, the Maker asks Eddie where they were. Eddie recounts the gist of their prior conversation, the Maker snarking that the question was rhetorical and that he has an eidetic memory. Eddie reiterates that he had nothing to do with the theft of the Maker's sample of the symbiote-dragon, though the Maker - pouring himself a cup of coffee - remarks that the symbiote may be hiding information and until his curiosity is sated Eddie will remain Project Oversight's prisoner. When Eddie states that he wants to go home, the Maker asks him where he considers home to be - given that his apartment in New York was vacated. When the Maker begins speculating why the symbiote brought Eddie to his father's home in San Francisco, Eddie snaps that he's had enough. The Maker asks Eddie where he'd go if Project Oversight let him leave, Eddie admitting that he'd go visit Flash's grave to pay respects for real. Smirking, the Maker tells Eddie there's something he'd like to show him, taking him to a morgue where he holds up a vial containing a sample of symbiote biomass, which he introduces as Corporal Eugene "Flash" Thompson. In response to Eddie's shock, he reveals that the symbiote biomass was extracted from a sample of Flash's blood taken during his time as Agent Venom. The Maker remarks that even after a symbiote is separated from its host, trace remnants - which he dubs a codex - remain inside the host's body. As he returns Flash's codex to a cold storage device, the Maker remarks that the sample of the Grendel symbiote could contain information about the symbiotes that could revolutionize scientific progress. When Eddie interrupts, asking what that has to do with him, the Maker remarks that he theorizes that harvesting the symbiote's codexes and returning them to the host could reactivate its connection to the hive mind. When he announces his intent to exhume and vivisect Flash's body to obtain additional samples, rebuking Eddie's outrage as misplaced sentimentality, Eddie Venomizes and smashes him face-first into the wall of the morgue, shattering his helmet's visor. As Venom roars at him to leave Flash alone, the Maker grumbles that he woke up the dog and tries to use his shape-shifting abilities to break free. The symbiote separates from Eddie, who notes that he can feel its presence for the first time since fighting the Grendel symbiote and opens a morgue locker. The symbiote immobilizes the Maker and drags him inside, Eddie slamming the door as it returns to him with Flash's codex. Lamenting that it'll always prefer Flash to him, Eddie scolds himself for feeling sorry for himself and runs out into the hall only to be confronted by a squad of soldiers armed with sonic cannons. As the soldiers blast him, Eddie recoils into the morgue and slams the door, wondering how they'll escape. In response, the Venom symbiote grabs Flash's codex and shatters the vial to absorb it, the copy of Flash's consciousness preserved in the codex taking over the symbiote - which transforms into its Agent Venom appearance. Permitting the copy of Flash's consciousness to take over, Eddie is again reduced to a passenger but remarks that this feels completely different from when Knull was trying to take over the symbiote - less like drowning and more like backup. As Agent Venom easily trounces the soldiers and escapes the building, using the symbiote to steal and wield multiple firearms simultaneously; Eddie notes that this is simply an echo of Flash that the symbiote is channeling because it doesn't have a voice of its own, but that he can't help but marvel at Flash's prowess and begrudgingly admits that Flash made a badass Venom. Later, the Maker walks down a hallway, instructing the facility's AI to erase a section of security footage. The AI asks if he means the period he spent locked in the autopsy drawer, causing the Maker to irately deactivate it. Extending his eyeball for a retinal identification scan, the Maker enters a room with several view-screens displaying the Unseen, Morlun of the Inheritors, Thanos's corpse, Galactus and the Silver Surfer, and members of the Spider-Army. Remarking that Eddie escaping is only a minor setback due to him secretly having a tracking device implanted into him, the Maker wonders what will come next. Later still, Eddie stands before Flash Thompson's grave in the real Arlington National Cemetery, thanking him for his posthumous help escaping the lab and sadly noting that the copy of Flash's consciousness seems to have burnt out, leaving him alone inside his head once more. Nevertheless, Eddie states he'll keep fighting the good fight, calling Flash his brother and telling him to get some rest. Departing the cemetery, Eddie resolves to deal with his personal issues - gazing into the abyss and making it blink for once - and boards a bus to San Francisco. Elsewhere, a figure clad in a hooded brown cloak walks down an underground tunnel, carrying a torch. The figure announces that his team was successful in infiltrating Project Oversight and escaping unnoticed, producing the sample of the Grendel symbiote and giving it to a second cultist - a woman wearing a purple bodysuit under her cloak. The woman announces that they act so that darkness can devour the light and that their lord can awaken in his new vessel and return all to the void - the torch illuminating a stasis pod containing the desiccated, badly-burnt body of Cletus Kasady. | Solicit = “THE ABYSS” CONTINUES! • After the gut-wrenching events of last issue, Eddie Brock finds himself alone for the first time in a LONG time, and the silence is deafening… • A can’t-miss issue for those looking to see the beginnings of next summer’s VENOM epic! | Notes = * The Maker identifies Flash Thomson as having been a test subject of Project P.E.G.A.S.U.S. during his tenure as Agent Venom, despite Flash having never encountered the organization. | Trivia = | Recommended = | Links = }} Category:Digital Comic Code included